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New Plant-Based Chicken Nuggets Are Officially Coming To Select A&Ws
All the chicken, none of the meat. 🍗
A&W is gearing up to add yet another plant-based item to their menu. A&W confirmed to Narcity that their new plant-based chicken nuggets will be launching on December 2 in Ontario and British Columbia. However, the new menu item will only be available for a limited time.
The news of the new plant-based nuggets broke on Monday afternoon on the Instagram account of Erin Ireland, founder of To Die For Fine Foods. Ireland, a baker and popular local vegan activist, shared her visit to the A&W test kitchen on her story, where she revealed the new menu item would be hitting select restaurants soon.
A&W Canada confirmed to Narcity that their new vegan nuggets will be launching next week in certain provinces as part of a test to see if Canadians are interested in more plant-based options.
"Wow. That is so crispy," Ireland says in the video, "You would never know that is not chicken."
According to the caption on Ireland's post about the nuggets, they are made with pea protein (which is also found in Beyond Meat burgers).
For any nugget lover who knows that you can't really eat them without a sauce for dipping, A&W is also offering barbecue and sweet and sour sauces that are completely plant-based as well.
Erin Ireland was so impressed with the nuggets, that at one point in her Instagram story, she was just sitting in an office and eating them (not a bad way to make a living)!
A&W stated that the nuggets are currently just a promotion, but that if they prove to be successful, "we hope to bring this option back again across the country." The company added that it is excited to see what Canadians think.
"We can’t resist our new Plant-Based Nuggets and we can’t wait for guests in Ontario and British Columbia to taste our delicious new nuggets for themselves," Susan Senecal, President and CEO at A&W Canada said in a press release.
"Nuggets are fun to eat and fun to share and we think Canadians will be very impressed with our new plant-based nuggets for lunch, dinner or any time in between."
The nuggets were created in partnership with Lightlife (owned by Greenleaf Foods), which is focused on creating plant-based foods. The two companies worked together to make the nuggets taste as much like real chicken as possible.
"We’re thrilled to partner with A&W as they launch their first plant-based nugget on menu," Dan Curtin, President and CEO of Greenleaf Foods said, "A&W is an icon in the Canadian dining landscape, and we’re excited for their guests to experience the taste, texture and satisfaction of Lightlife’s plant-based nuggets."
has been a hit with Canadians. They have also started offering a in Canada which customers have been gobbling up since it launched earlier this year.
A&W has gotten in trouble with Beyond Meat, however. An advertisement featuringtrying the burgers earned the chain some backlash.


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BUSINESS NEWS - The collapse of Mirror Trading International (MTI), now under provisional liquidation, has claimed its first commercial casualty in the form of Finalmente Global, which has announced it’s closing down due to MTI’s demise.
MTI, a bitcoin investment scheme offering returns of up to 10% a month, was placed in provisional liquidation in December after failing to pay out members requesting withdrawals.
Moneyweb understands an application for Finalmente’s provisional liquidation is being prepared and will be filed in the high court within days.
Finalmente is purported to be an internet advertising company that could generate returns of 106% by buying bulk ads and selling them for a profit.
It apparently did this by encouraging investors to “lend” bitcoin, much of which was channelled to MTI.
Cyber security and crypto expert Vaughn Victor, part of the team representing two Finalmente clients bringing the court application, says it’s reckoned the company funnelled 20 000 to 30 000 clients to MTI.
Like MTI, Finalmente was a multi-level marketing scheme offering 1-3% referral marketing fees on “downline” customers introduced to the scheme.
One Finalmente customer told Moneyweb he had no idea of any link between MTI and Finalmente.
A 22 December 2020 e-mail sent to members from CEO Kobus van der Merwe, seen by Moneyweb, supposedly puts sunlight between the two companies.
“The current state of affairs of Mirror Trading International is that of Mirror Trading International and not Finalmente Global.
“The concerning matters of Mirror Trading International do not affect the daily dealings of Finalmente Global.
“Finalmente Global merely advertised Mirror Trading International for and on behalf of certain business leaders (who bought and paid for these services). The association between the two companies ends at that. Nothing more….”

domain: news


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This year, Samsung simply inundated users with affordable smartphones along with the excellent “stuffing” of the Galaxy A series.
What and when to expect
Information about the presentation, which will take place on December 12, has appeared on the page of the Samsung division in Vietnam.
What exactly will be presented at it is unknown.But the advertising poster promises new items in the Galaxy A series in 2020 and shows a smartphone with a frameless design and a round cutout for the front camera, like the Galaxy Note 10.
The division also published a promotional video that shows the advantages of cameras of previous models. Most likely, new smartphones will also focus on cameras.
By the way, rumors recently appeared that the Galaxy S10 Lite, Galaxy Note 10 Lite and Galaxy A51 will debut in December. The company is also working on the Galaxy A11, Galaxy A31 and Galaxy A41.</ p>


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Wang’s decision to withdraw its field service support for Dell has the PC vendor’s New Zealand boss, Ross Allen, calling for the lawyers.
He reckons Dell gave Wang due notice of 120 days of termination of contract but that Wang chief executive Doug Wilson subsequently chose to jump.
Dell has written to its customers — the letter is dated December 10 — saying that Digital MCS will now provide the service. But Allen, who had just climbed off a plane when Computerworld spoke to him last Wednesday, seemed nonplussed that Wang had decided to discontinue the arrangement as of December 20.
“I’m disappointed in Doug [Wilson],” he says. “I’ll need to talk to our lawyers before I comment further.”
Wilson had earlier told Computerworld that he understood Dell was about to enter into an Australasian/Asia arrangement with Digital. “Actually, they’re now a competitor for us, particularly against PC Direct.” (PC Direct and Wang are part of the Blue Star group.)
“It’s disappointing. We gave Dell the credibility to start up here by being their service partner. Now, we’ve gone on the front foot.
“We’re disappointed that a multi-national has used us to set up, then done another deal.”
Wilson says Wang will act professionally by assisting Digital MCS (multivendor customer services) to take over the Dell servicing in New Zealand.
Wang’s decision to withdraw its service at such relatively short notice and at Christmas time may mean that Dell customers could face service problems over the holiday period till Digital picks up the reins — probably out of Sydney.
In the US, Dell is reported by the Wall Street Journal to be changing television advertisements claiming it is the top seller of desktop PCs to US businesses after IDC revised sales figures on which Dell based the advertisements.
International Data (IDC) now says that Compaq sold more desktops than Dell to medium-sized and large US businesses in the second quarter.


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Digital Marketing Company and Chamber member Pepamint have won the Theo Paphitis #SBS award. The weekly business competition aims to recognise and reward innovative small businesses across the UK.
Exporting to Egypt? Further update from the Egyptian British Chamber of Commerce regarding the exportation of certain product and goods for the retail market to Egypt.
Chamber member and printing solutions firm based in Elland, ABS UK Ltd, is set to launch a new Business Incubator service to a start-up business offering a free desk space and expert business mentoring.
Huddersfield marketing consultancy and Chamber member, KC Communications has been appointed by Hornsea based security manufacturer, Heald Ltd to expand their global marketing strategy.
The Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wakefield Council. The partnership aims to work more closely to provide economic and business growth opportunities for the Wakefield district.
The Pensions Regulator is warning small and micro employers to act now to ensure they meet their new workplace pension duties and put certain staff into a pension scheme. Nearly six million staff have already been put into a scheme by the UKs large and medium employers, but the vast majority of small employers have yet to reach the date their automatic enrolment duties start (staging date).
Looking to get fit this January? Chamber member, Huddersfield Community Trust are launching a unique range of free 8 week programmes, exclusive to ladies. The programme which starts on Tuesday 12th January aims to encourage local women to kick-start a healthier lifestyle and to change unhealthy habits. The sessions incorporate a range of fun taster sessions of different exercises and sports.


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Everyone is suddenly crazy for Pokémon Go. Nintendo has set the world alight with their Augmented Reality (AR) game and watched their share price soa...
Augmented reality is here, and is already having a strong impact on everyone's lives, including those who never played a video game in their lives and never heard about augmented reality...
The experience of Notes on Blindness and its phenomenal ability to share something of John Hull's perception of the world certainly makes it seem like this is possible.
According to research from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, social media is used each week by more than half (51%) of online news consumers to find, discuss and share, news content.
Opinions may still be divided on VR but undoubtedly this is a market that is predicted to grow as fast as smart phones and the more companies and developers that get involved, the more accessible and cheaper VR will become.
Having lost my wife's car keys this weekend - I forgot I put them on a café table when we were out shopping - I can testify that forgetfulness is something we are afflicted by throughout life. As anyone who has experienced dementia in a loved one will be quick to tell you, we are not talking about forgetting where our keys are, but rather what keys are for.
Gaming has always been popular, but this has increased exponentially over the last few years. Whereas gaming was once seen as 'geeky' and 'uncool,' nowadays, geeky IS cool. You can blame the huge rise of comics and 'cosplay' conventions such as Comic Con for contributing to this massive change in perception.
2016 is the year that virtual reality goes mainstream. Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive headset have rolled out to rave reviews, and just this week Google has announced its Daydream VR platform. Virtual reality has arrived, and is likely here to stay. But beyond appealing to gamers, what other horizons might there be for VR?
Upstairs in Mayfair's Gazelli Gallery stands a plinth on which rests a small cardboard house (above). Put on the Virtual Reality (VR) headset and ea...
A new generation of workers - digital nomads - are harnessing the power of mobile and instagramming their way to a new kind of productivity; free from employers, property, belongings and stress. And in their kiteboarding wake, our collective attitudes to work and life are shifting.
What actually counts as cheating in the digital age could become highly subjective. We need to reconsider what it means to be monogamous in a world of VR porn and internet-controlled sex toys.
There are also grand plans to incorporate VR into military strategy, to prepare NASA astronauts for their first voyage into space and even to train apprentice welders. The opportunities, it appears, are limitless.
Last week, I was one of the lucky few to get my HTC Vive VR headset and finally embrace the new world of VR gaming. Having originally tested the Vive ...
I'm standing in the middle of a pig shed. To my left and right, I see row after row of tightly packed sows and their squealing piglets. The building is a sorry sight - hard, featureless, sometimes barely visible in the dim light. I want to leave, except I'm not actually "there". Welcome to the curious world of virtual reality.
Today experts in live streaming 360° and VR Mativision will be broadcasting live through pioneering virtual reality (VR) technology an operation on a patient with colon cancer at The Royal London Hospital. This is a world first.
In 1968 something happened that offered a remarkable insight to the future of the human race. In that year, Ivan Sutherland and Bob Sproull created the world's first virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) head mounted display. They named it the Sword of Damocles.


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Spotify has filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission alleging unfair business practices that disadvantage the company as it competes with Apple Music.
Founder and CEO Daniel Ek detailed why the company was filing the complaint in a blog post earlier today. Ek says that paying Apple a 30% cut would raise the cost of its subscriptions to above Apple Music and not paying Apple results in a series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions.
You can read the full post below or by clicking here.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Email, Reddit, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Newsletter, App Store, YouTube


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At a press briefing, Director General Nguyen Khac Luan of Vinaxad, the organizer, said exhibitors from 20 countries including the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, China, Rumania, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam have signed on.
“The event will be huge,” said Luan, “with an estimated 350 pavilions showcasing a myriad of products and services”.
In particular, exhibitors from Sri Lanka will showcase high-quality paints for any occasion.
Luan said the Vietnam Expo serves as a bridge between Vietnam and international trade groups and brings about a number of opportunities to expand export markets and economic cooperation.
In addition, the fourth International Bicycle Exhibition (Vietnam Cycle) 2015 will coincide with the Vietnam Expo on December 2-5, introducing sports, climbing, fashion, and electrical bicycles of all kinds, makes and models.


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Vectors 2019: Takeaways from Ciena's Recent Customer/Technology Showcase
LightCounting Releases a Research Note on Vectors 2019
Every eighteen months or so, Ciena hosts more than 150 companies and 800 or so customers at its Kanata (a suburb of Ottawa, Canada) campus at an event it calls Vectors. The purpose is to give customers (and industry analysts) advance looks at products and technology in development and get their feedback. Although much of what is disclosed at Vectors is under NDA, with Ciena’s permission we published a seven-page Research Note about the company’s strategy and products today.
Ciena CFO Jim Moylan gave a high-level intro to Ciena’s corporate strategy, which starts with a vision that the company “will be the best at moving bits and the best at automating networks.” The strategy to achieve that vision has three elements:
- Be the leader in technology and innovation
- Diversify in segments, solutions, and geographies
- Achieve global scale
Mr. Moylan also elaborated on Ciena’s financial strategy, saying “Ciena’s financial strategy is not complicated. We just grow revenues faster than operating costs”. And Ciena has done that. In an industry whose revenues have grown just 3-4 percent per year, Ciena’s revenues have grown an average of 9% annually, by virtue of taking market share away from competitors (growing share in North America especially) and exploiting new market segments (submarine, hyper-scalers) and geographies (India). Ciena’s announced financial goals for the next few years are to grow revenues 6-8% annually.
Ciena’s goal of 6-8% annual revenue growth appears conservative given that Ciena’s actual annual growth since 2012 ranged from 6-14% with a CAGR of 10%. In recent years, Ciena has developed an admirable track record of beating its own annual revenue guidance, so the outlook could just be more of the same. However, it’s also possible that Ciena is factoring in a slowing in its share gains or other market headwinds. For example, the transition to automated networks could be a very slow process which would affect revenue growth from software sales. Open-source software may put a dent into this new pool of revenue also.
Ciena CTO Steve Alexander described how the company’s Adaptive Network vision translates into a technology strategy, listing several key customer needs that are guiding Ciena’s technology focus. First among these is the need to ‘make capacity and connectivity abundant’ to support continued bandwidth growth and growing numbers of devices and network endpoints. From a technology standpoint, this translates into pushing coherent optical closer to the network edge, and a continued focus on miniaturization of the optical transport components. WaveLogic 5 Extreme and WaveLogic 5 Nano are just the latest publicly announced new products along this path. And yes, Ciena confirmed that WaveLogic 6 is in development, without saying when it would hit the market or with what speed and performance. Mr. Alexander later confirmed that he believes on-board optics will eventually be needed, but that it remained a topic of debate among his team as to when.
The second key customer need is to have the network edge closer to the cloud (i.e., content) to improve customer experience. This means adopting datacenter-like architectures and networking principles in metro and even access networks and driving end-to-end latency down to 10 milliseconds or less. Since most latency in today’s networks is due to transit time through various network elements and not fiber length, simplifying and consolidating network elements is key to attaining this goal.
The third critical need cited by Alexander is to mitigate network complexity in order to avoid being overwhelmed by the growth in scale required for future networks. Ciena’s solution for mitigating complexity is advanced automation in both Ciena-only and multivendor hardware domains.
The fourth need, to have safer networks, translates into enhanced security features, and greater network resistance and resilience.
One of the most interesting and relevant demos we were privy to addressed the next-gen WaveLogic 5 product family – consisting of the WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) and WaveLogic 5 Nano (WL5n).
Ciena shared many details of the WL5e ASIC and electro-optic components performance and production which we can’t disclose, but suffice to say, we were impressed. Additionally, Ciena recently announced that its first public customer for WL5e-equipped Waveserver equipment is Internet2, which connects several hundred universities, government agencies, and community anchor institutions across the U.S. (see https://bit.ly/2MNxmC0)
The clients-only Research Note published today provides additional detail on the above and includes additional content on:
- Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Nano pluggable coherent optical transceivers
- A coherent transport solution for cable MSOs using Ciena’s 5170/5171 transport boxes
- Ciena’s strategy to provide Adaptive Networks via its Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) and Blue Planet software suites
- Thoughts on the impact of the trade war and Cisco’s acquisition of Acacia on Ciena
- An brief update on Ciena’s vertical integration efforts
3D Sensing for Self-Driving Cars Reaches the Peak of Inflated Expectations
LightCounting releases a new report addressing illumination in smartphones and automotive lidarIn 2019, the market for VCSEL (vertical cavity surface-emitting laser) illumination in smartphones will exceed $1.0 billion – now nearly triple the size of the market for communications VCSELs. That’s quite remarkable for a market that didn’t exist three years ago.3D sensing in smartphones felt like an overnight sensation, but the technology foundations were laid down years ago with Microsoft’s Kinect – a motion-sensing peripheral for gamers released in 2010 but discontinued in 2017 after lackluster sales. Lumentum supplied lasers to the Kinect almost a decade before the iPhone opportunity emerged; the company was ready to profit from the iPhone X opportunity when Apple decided to launch 3D sensing for facial recognition in September 2017.
Figure: 3D depth-sensing meets the Gartner Hype Cycle
Source: Gartner with edits by LightCounting
If all technologies follow the Gartner Hype Cycle, shown in the Figure above, then 3D sensing in smartphones is now moving up the slope of enlightenment. Android brands raced to add 3D sensing to their flagship phones in 2018 – the Xiaomi Mi8 Explorer and Oppo Find X phones were first – although these only sold in single digit million quantities. Huawei also brought out new phones with 3D sensing, but the ongoing U.S. export ban on the Chinese company must be hurting the company’s traction outside China. Apple continues to dominate the market as all new iPhones released by Apple since 2017 have included 3D sensing on the front of the phone. Apple is expected to introduce 3D sensing for ‘world-facing’ applications in 2020, which adds another laser chip to every phone.
Last year illumination for lidars were not included in our market forecast since LightCounting considered it unlikely that lidar would penetrate the consumer market to any great extent over the forecast period. All indicators now point to a market for lidar illumination ramping up in 2022 and beyond. Optical components firms are now shipping prototypes and samples of VCSELs, edge emitters and coherent lasers to customers developing next-generation lidar systems – many of them building on their expertise in illumination for optical communications and smartphones.
As was the case with smartphones, the foundations for lidar technology were laid down much earlier – in this case with the DARPA Challenge 2007, where the winning vehicle used a 64-laser lidar system from Velodyne Acoustics (now Velodyne Lidar). Lidar is considered by the majority of the industry to be an essential part of the sensor suite required for autonomous driving, helping the vehicle to navigate through the environment and detect obstacles in its path. The first commercial deployments have begun. In Germany, lidar on the Audi A8 enables the car to drive itself for limited periods under specific conditions. In Phoenix, Arizona, you can hail a ride in a Waymo robotaxi.
Investor enthusiasm for lidar is undeniable with nearly half a billion dollars invested in lidar start-ups in 2019 according to our analysis of publicly available investment data. Notable deals include $60 million for U.S. company Ouster in March, Israel’s Innoviz Technologies Series C round of $132 million in the same month, and $100 million for U.S.-based Luminar Technologies in July. Interestingly, these examples illustrate the variety of lidar approaches: each company is building a different type of lidar based on a different wavelength: 850nm for Ouster, 905nm for Innoviz and 1550nm in the case of Luminar. There’s an open technology battle and they can’t all be winners.
The automotive lidar market seems to be close to the peak of ‘inflated expectations’. It’s easy to understand why. The automotive industry is enormous, with nearly 100 million vehicles (including trucks) produced annually. Players like Baidu, GM Cruise and Waymo are backed by deep corporate pockets, and new entrants like Aurora and Pony.ai are attracting hundreds of millions in investment. Intel’s $15.3 billion purchase of Mobileye in 2017 was also directed at autonomous driving. Sensor company AMS is in a $4.8 billion battle to acquire German semiconductor lighting firm Osram with its eye firmly on lidar.
However, signs indicate that the descent into the trough of disillusionment could have already begun. Waymo has yet to roll out its robotaxi services more widely – and this summer admitted that its vehicles needed more testing in the rain. GM Cruise has delayed launch of commercial services for self-driving cars beyond 2019 and is reluctant to commit to a new timescale, with its CEO Dan Ammann observing that safety is paramount; automotive is not an industry where you can “move fast and break things” he said. A casualty of the slow pace was optical phased array lidar developer Oryx Vision, which closed its doors in August and started to hand money back to investors.
While lidar is being deployed commercially today, prices are not conducive to mass production, and there are open questions around regulation, safety, ethics and consumer acceptance. Do local laws prohibit self-driving cars? Will they really be safer than humans? Who is responsible for a crash? LightCounting remains skeptical about the pace of adoption of autonomous vehicles, but will be watching the market closely and with optimism.
More information on the report is available at: https://www.lightcounting.com/Sensing.cfm.


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CVS Health is making a significant investment in its employees by raising the minimum enterprise hourly wage to $15 an hour, effective July 2022.
CVS Health will raise its minimum enterprise hourly wage to $15 an hour, effective July 2022, with incremental increases to the company’s competitive hourly rates starting this month. Approximately 65% of CVS employees earning hourly wages already make more than $15 an hour.
The minimum wage hike from CVS came two days before new unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed a tightening labor market. Unemployment for July fell by 0.5% to 5.4%.
“Attracting and retaining top talent across our businesses is critical as we continue to redefine what it means to meet people’s health needs,” said CVS Health President and CEO Karen S. Lynch. “These wage increases will have a meaningful impact on our colleagues and their families while helping the communities we serve prosper.”
Moving to $15 an hour next year will mark a more than 60% increase in the CVS Health minimum enterprise hourly wage over a four-year period. The minimum wage structure incorporates additional increases beyond the enterprise minimum, with higher starting hourly rates for roles such as pharmacy technicians and call center representatives.
Meanwhile, the retailer also reported on its second quarter ended June 30, indicating that total revenues increased to $72.6 billion, up 11.1% compared with the prior year.
During the company's earnings call, Shawn Guertin, EVP and CFO, mentioned that retail delivered strong results during the quarter, exceeding expectations. “Total revenue of nearly $25 billion increased by $3 billion or 14% year over year,” he said during the earnings call. “This improvement is driven by three main components. One, approximately one-third or $1 billion is attributable to the nearly 17 million COVID vaccines and more than 6 million COVID tests administered during the second quarter. Two, an additional one-third or another $1 billion is due to the broad quarantine restrictions and civil unrest experienced last year that depressed results in the second quarter of 2020. Three, the final one-third or remaining $1 billion was driven by a combination of improved pharmacy growth and mix during the second quarter, as well as broad strength in front-store trends. Front-store revenue increased by nearly 13%, while pharmacy prescription volume was up 14%, including COVID vaccines. This strong revenue growth, combined with a 340-basis-point improvement in adjusted operating margin, produced adjusted operating income well ahead of our forecast and an increase of nearly $1 billion year over year.”
However, as Lynch pointed out during the earnings call, CVS’ wage increase will probably create an incremental $600 million in labor costs over three years. “Approximately $125 million of that impact will be in the final four months of this year,” she said.
Combined with other factors, like increased investments in the second half of 2021 to drive and support growth, enhance consumer experience, and improve cost structure, Guertin expects that the company's second-half adjusted EPS will be negatively affected by approximately 25 cents per share.
In other workforce development moves, CVS Health recently opened a Workforce Innovation and Talent Center in Pittsburgh at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which provides employment services and training to underserved populations through partnerships with faith-based and community organizations.
CVS Health is also removing barriers to obtaining employment. Recently, the company eliminated the high school diploma or GED requirement for most entry-level roles, and this year will eliminate the GPA requirement for university recruitment.


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The leading Dutch luxury yacht builder, Heesen Yachts, is thrilled to announce that the revolutionary 65m Fast Displacement yacht Galactica Star has been honoured with the prominent ‘Best of the Best’ accolade by Robb Report China.
On 24th October, 2013 Robb Report China hosted the sixth ‘Best of the Best’ awards at the Westin Hotel in the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
The revolutionary 65m Fast Displacement motor yacht Galactica Star has now won her fourth international recognition in less than a month; after receiving the Prix du Design from HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, the Nautilus award from Yacht Design Magazine and La Belle Classe from the Yacht Club de Monaco.
The jury of ‘Best of the Best,’ Robb Report China is composed of four well-known representatives of the Chinese yachting and shipbuilding industry who are also fine yacht connoisseurs:
Mr. Yang Xin Fa – Vice Secretary of CANSI (China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry)
Mr. Wang Chao Yong – President of China Equity International Holding Co. Ltd. and President of team China at the America’s Cup 2005
Mr. Feng Hui – President of Zhengxin Group and also a keen sailor
Mr. Zhong Yong – CEO of China Cup and also a keen sailor
The four judges expressed their preference for superyacht Galactica Star because of her revolutionary technology, the Fast Displacement Hull Form (FDHF) devised by Van Oossanen Naval Architects, which makes her 30 per cent more efficient than any traditional displacement vessel. The jury was also impressed by the beauty and elegance of the exterior lines by Frank Laupman, perfectly and harmoniously complemented by the luxurious interior design by Bannenberg and Rowell.


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Are we in a new tech bubble? Arguably, yes. But I think it's a narrower bubble on the whole than what transpired in 1999/2000.
To be sure, forward sales, earnings and free cash flow multiples are above historical norms across broad swaths of tech right now -- for everything from big-cap tech to semis, software and Internet companies. And though there are some exceptions, the companies whose multiples remain within or below their historical ranges are often value traps.
Throw in the fact that interest rates remain at rock-bottom levels, that COVID has accelerated tech adoption in a number of different ways, and that the Fed and Congress' actions this year have given investors greater confidence about future policy responses to macro downturns, and a lot of tech valuations simply look moderately high, rather than in nosebleed territory.
But there are some areas where valuations have gotten pretty out of hand. One can chalk it up to a few different factors, perhaps the biggest of which are:
- A major influx of new retail investors, some of whom have also taken a liking to options trading.
- Enthusiasm over the giant, COVID-driven, demand surges that certain tech firms have seen this year.
- Many retail and institutional investors alike being convinced -- following a decade or so of growth stocks outperforming value stocks -- that buying high-growth tech companies is a bulletproof investing strategy, even as multiples get quite stretched.
Electric car companies are definitely one area where investors have often gotten carried away.
When not one but three Chinese EV makers (Nio (NIO) , Xpeng and BYD) are worth more than Ford (F) , when several different EV SPACs currently producing no revenue are worth a few billion or more, and when Tesla (TSLA) ($539 billion market cap as of Wednesday's close) is worth more than most auto incumbents combined, you have reasons to think that markets aren't taking a level-headed approach to valuing companies that (while participating in a market that has a lot of growth in front of it) operate in a very capital-intensive industry and will often have their hands full competing against both auto incumbents and each other.
You also have some bubble-like behavior taking place among consumer-centric tech companies operating in industries that have seen demand inflect this year. Think companies such as Peloton (PTON) , Unity Software (U) and BigCommerce (BIGC) .
Here, investors often seem much too complacent about the risk that growth could slow down considerably once COVID vaccines are widely available. And in some cases, they also seem too complacent about company-specific threats -- for example, all of the new competition that Peloton is now seeing, or the impact that new iOS privacy controls could have on Unity's large mobile ad business.
Finally, select high-growth software firms have been bid up to sky-high multiples. The list includes names that have become retail favorites (think Palantir (PLTR) or Zoom (ZM) ), as well as names that have seen COVID-related demand jumps (thnk Zoom, Zscaler (ZS) or nCino (NCNO) ). And there are also a few that don't fit neatly into either category (think Datadog (DDOG) or Coupa Software (COUP) ).
Outside of select names such as Zoom, growth might not slow down dramatically for these companies post-COVID, and in some cases might actually accelerate a bit. As a result, barring major macro pressures, one could see high-growth software being an area that in many cases sees valuations gradually deflate, rather than dramatically collapse.
But one way or another, the kind of irrational exuberance being shown right now towards the companies mentioned above tends to end badly for investors buying in late.


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Why a Small V6 Is All Ferrari Needs to Trounce the Competition
The new 296 GTB features the most power-dense motor ever used in a production car
In the world of supercars, legendary automotive designer Gordon Murray attempted to make hybrid a dirty word (well, figuratively speaking) with the unveiling of the gas-defending T.50 last year.
“I have a hankering to do one more supercar, and I wouldn’t have unless these one-and-a-half-tonne hybrid monsters hadn’t come out,” he said at the time. “But now there’s a point to be proven: that you can still do a great driver’s car with an internal combustion engine and pure engineering.”
Looking back on that now, while the car is certainly a stunner, it’s a silly premise. The internal combustion engine doesn’t need a defender; the oil and automotive giants have that position filled to the point of climate disaster. Making it look even sillier? The recently uncovered Ferrari 296 GTB, a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) — which Murray so detests — that includes both an electric motor derived from the marque’s Formula 1 cars and a brand-new V6, which is “the first 6-cylinder engine installed on a road car sporting the Prancing Horse badge,” as the brand stated, and “the most power-dense motor ever put into a production car,” according to Road & Track.
Even if you can’t tell a turbo from a hair dryer — a descriptor I’ll be using from now on thanks to Fast & Furious car builder Craig Lieberman — the guts of this Ferrari are something everyone can appreciate. While a traditional V6 engine will have a 60- or 90-degree angle between the cylinder banks, Ferrari’s new V6 here has a 120-degree angle, which the automaker says offers advantages like a lower center of gravity, reduced engine mass and the ability to install turbos right inside the vee.
The end result is a power output of 654 horsepower from just 2992 cc of displacement. For comparison’s sake, Road & Track noted this “surpasses even AMG’s crazy inline-four and Bugatti’s dominating W-16” (that’d be 16 cylinders). As for the aforementioned T.50, that gets the same 654 horsepower, but out of a much larger 12-cylinder engine, with a displacement of 3,994 cc. And those Ferrari numbers are before we add the 165 ponies from the rear-mounted electric motor. So while some gearheads may not be keen on hybrid power, no one can deny the “pure engineering” Ferrari has accomplished here.
Plus, this is simply one of the best-looking two-seaters Ferrari has delivered in recent memory. It finds a nice balance between the aggressive stance of the SF90 Stradale, the marque’s first plug-in hybrid, and the statuesque smoothness of the Roma grand tourer. Add in a bit of heritage — the new V6 harkens back to those found in Ferrari race cars of the last century, like the 1957 Dino 156 F2 and the 246 SP that won the Targa Florio in ‘61 and ‘62 — and we’ve got ourselves a compelling option for those looking for a new six-figure supercar.
We don’t know full details on price or release date yet, but as for other specs, the 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) time is 2.9 seconds, and the top speed is around 205 mph. If you’re wondering who needs that much power in a road car, know that this will also be available with the high-performance Assetto Fiorano package, that includes “lightweight features and aero modifications” for those looking to hit the track.
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U.S. Consumer Confidence Hits Six-Year Low on Drag From Pandemic
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. consumer confidence dropped in August to the lowest since 2014 as consumers soured on employment and business conditions, indicating Americans are becoming despondent amid persistently high joblessness.
The Conference Board’s index decreased to 84.8, the lowest level since the pandemic began, from a revised 91.7 in the prior month, according to a report issued Tuesday. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a reading of 93 in August. The group’s gauge of expectations fell 3.7 points to 85.2, the lowest since 2016, while household sentiment about current conditions dropped 11.7 points to 84.2.
The report points to a bumpy economic recovery -- and risks for President Donald Trump’s re-election -- as Americans grapple with high unemployment and uncertainty about future federal stimulus, with a new version of jobless aid just starting to reach Americans. The confidence gauge also remains well below pre-crisis levels, illustrating the depth of the economic hole created by the pandemic, as well as the impact of the surge in infections in June and July.
Other data Tuesday were more upbeat: New-home sales jumped to the highest since 2006, while a regional measure of manufacturing was the strongest in almost two years. Still, the home sales show how higher-income Americans -- with relatively secure jobs and investments in a rising stock market -- are faring compared with lower-income workers, a phenomenon sometimes called a “K”-shaped, or two-track, recovery.
“I found consumers’ more downbeat assessment of the current and future outlook for the labor market both reflective of that two-tracked recovery, but also a possible warning sign that the relatively strong recovery in jobs posted in the past few months could be slowing,” said Kathleen Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “This in turn depresses income expectations, again underscoring that two-tracked recovery.”
What Bloomberg’s Economists Say
“Consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board, unexpectedly declined in August as Americans faced growing uncertainty about jobs and income prospects. ... The responses in the report partially capture the slow, unclear process of extending jobless support and other aid.”
-- Eliza Winger
Read more for the full reaction note.
U.S. stocks swung between gains and losses after the report, while yields on 10-year Treasuries briefly fell before rising again.
The share of consumers saying jobs are hard to get jumped to 25.2% from 20.1%. About 30% of consumers said they expect better economic conditions six months from now, down from 31.6% in July.
“Consumer spending has rebounded in recent months but increasing concerns amongst consumers about the economic outlook and their financial well-being will likely cause spending to cool in the months ahead,” Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board, said in a statement.
In fact, respondents indicated they were less likely to make big purchases in the months ahead: the share expecting to buy major appliances fell to 44.8%, the lowest since 2015, while those planning to buy a car dropped to 9.7%, the second-lowest since 2010.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.


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Pet care group Pets At Home has announced plans to buy back 55 vet practices from partners and close up to 30 of them.
Chief executive Peter Pritchard said the group plans to “simplify the business” and focus on its retail stores that sell pet food, toys and accessories. In its half-year results, reported alongside the restructuring proposals, Pets at Home announced first-half profits for the year to October fell 80.4% from £40.8m to £8m at the same time last year.
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Closure of Debenhams a major blow for 2,000 employees – Troy
09 April 2020
Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Robert Troy has said the closure of Debenham’s eleven Irish stores and concessions is a major blow to the 2,000 direct and indirect employees based around the country.
The company has been a feature of the Irish retail landscape for over twenty years following its purchase of the original Roches Stores network.
Deputy Troy said, ““Firstly, my thoughts go out to the employees, their families and all those affected by this devastating news. There’s little doubt that these workers are facing into an uncertain future after receiving this notice.
“Employees have been through the mill over the past couple of years, with the threat of job losses constantly hanging over them. Today’s news, on top of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis is devastating for them.
“Minister Humphreys and Minister Doherty will need to establish what options and supports will be available to the Debenhams workers, in particular once the twelve-week COVID-19 pandemic payment ends.
“Importantly, retraining and upskilling opportunities should be made available to them, once the COVID-19 crisis restrictions are lifted,” he concluded.


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4 New iPads
Apple to Release 4 New iPads in March
It seems a monster year is in for The Fruit. According to a report by Mactokara, Apple is rumored to be preparing for the launch of 4 new iPads, with sizes including 12.9, 10.5, 9.7, and 7.9 inches. While the 12.9 and 10.5 sizes will most likely be a continuation of the current iPad lineup, the smaller sizes will replace the iPad Mini. In a similar report by MacRumors, these new tablets will have 4 speakers, a 12-megapixel rear camera, and four microphones. The main question for Apple is why hasn’t the iPad become more than an entertainment device for toddlers on airplanes. (Source: Mashable).
A Smartphone For Selfies
Chinese beautifying app Meitu has renewed popularity on Twitter (the app launched in 2008). Meitu gives you anime-like big eyes, rosy cheeks, lush lips, and dreamy hair. Riding this momentum, Meitu has released a phone focused (pun intended) on selfie-takers. Enter the T8, equipped with 12 autofocus megapixel cameras on both the front and back of the device. The cameras utilize a Sony IMX362 sensor to provide faster autofocus and clear up lower-light pictures. With added facial-recognition technology, this phone’s selfie-taking tech appears to be an advancement. (Source: Mashable).
Snapchat Spectacles Hit Online Market
If you’ve ever wanted your own pair of Snapchat Spectacles, you’re in luck! Thanks to a new website, built by parent company Snap Inc., you can now buy a pair of Spectacles for $129. Previously, to buy Spectacles, one had to search for strategically placed vending machines in certain cities. Like Google Glass before them, part of Spectacles’ allure was their scarcity. We’ll see if sales increase or if it was just a fad. We are leaning toward #fad. Oh, Snap. (Source: ARS Technica)


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While Instagram and Snapchat may have recently stolen the limelight from Facebook as the trendy social media sites, Facebook is still the most popular social networking site for teens aged 13 to 17.
A new study conducted by Pew Research Center shows that 71 percent of teens still use Facebook, and that same number said they use more than one social media site. 50 percent of those teens said they used Instagram, and 40 percent said they used Snapchat.
Among those using multiple social media platforms, Facebook was still the most commonly visited site. 45 percent of boys reported to visiting Facebook most frequently, compared to 36 percent of girls.
An interesting connection can be drawn from the online-survey in relation to social media usage and socio-economic status. Teenagers from households with earnings of less than $50,000 a year were most likely to use Facebook, at 49 percent. That’s compared with 37 per cent of teens from households with earnings of $50,000 or more.
How much are these sites actually consuming teenagers’ lives? 24 percent of teens responded they were online “almost constantly,” while 56 percent said they logged on several times a day. Only 12 percent reported to just using social media once a day.


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NEW YORK (
, which competes with
Research in Motion
in the smartphone market, is the leader in mobile phone apps with around 225,000 apps available in its app store.
Apple makes money from paid applications downloaded by users of iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch devices, and will start making money from advertisements from free apps through its newly developed iAd mobile advertising platform.
, the exclusive mobile operator of the iPhone in the U.S., recently introduced tiered plans for data use on mobile phones. We believe that such tiered data pricing plans could have a negative impact on the app and iAd businesses of Apple if iPhone owners were to limit their use of apps to avoid paying higher monthly data fees.
AT&T's Tiered Data Plans
AT&T's decision to create tiered data plan pricing is driven by the explosion of data consumption in recent years as a result of smartphones that make the internet and mobile apps accessible to a wide group of subscribers. Apps that involve games or videos consume significant mobile data bandwidth and rising use of such apps has also helped precipitate the changes in AT&T's pricing.
Previously, AT&T had charged users a simple $30 per month for unlimited data usage on smartphones. Now, subscribers that use less than 2 GB of data per month will be charged only $25 per month, but those who exceed that threshold will face additional charges.
Apple's Apps Business Could Suffer
We estimate that Apple's apps business constitutes about 8% of the
. We believe this step from AT&T could have strong implications for Apple's apps business as users may be discouraged from downloading additional paid apps, thereby impacting Apple's paid apps business, and use of free apps could decline, thereby impacting Apple's iAd business.
Games constitute the highest number of paid app downloads for Apple and are also amongst the highest priced apps. Since games consume significant amounts of bandwidth and consumers spend more time on games than most other apps, AT&T's data pricing policy could have a significant impact on the lucrative game app business.
If consumers become reluctant to purchase game apps from fear of additional data charges, there could be a downside of 1% to the $296 Trefis price estimate for Apple's stock as the percentage of paid app downloads declines from around 4% in 2009 to 3% by the end of Trefis forecast period rather than increase as we currently forecast.
Apple will debut its iAd platform in July 2010 through which the company will earn money from ads that run while users use free apps. Apple benefits as users spend more time on apps, meaning more ad impressions and more ad revenues for Apple.
AT&T's decision could discourage users from using free apps for too long, as it increases their risk of exceeding the data cap limit.
There could be an additional downside of 1% to the
if ad impression per iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch device declines from around 300 per month in 2010 to around 240 per month by the end of Trefis forecast period instead of an increase as we forecast.
You can see
is a financial community structured around trends, forecasts and insights related to some of the most popular stocks in the U.S.


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Marks Electrical has reported a 21.5% increase in revenues to £97.5 million in its full-year results, compared with £80.5 million last year, despite low consumer confidence due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
In the year ended 31 March 2023, the electrical retailer maintained market-leading profitability, despite “external cost headwinds”, resulting in EBITDA of £7.5 million compared with £7.2 million in the same period last year.
Statutory profit before tax also increased from £3.8 million last year to £6.4 million this year.
“We delivered another strong performance over the year, with revenue growth of 21.5%, which was particularly pleasing when compared to a prior year comparative of 44% and a difficult economic backdrop in which both the major domestic appliances and consumer electronics markets have declined year-on-year,” Marks Electrical CEO Mark Smithson said.
“The market share gain we’ve achieved in the online MDA market from 3.5% to 4.7% has been driven by the strength of our high quality business model, our people and the attractiveness of our market-leading customer offering.
“More customers are discovering Marks Electrical and our focus on stocking the right products, at the right price, with the fastest and most convenient delivery & installation options sets us apart from the competition, enabling us to continue to grow, attract talent, strengthen our operational capacity and further develop our service offerings.”
Looking ahead, the company claimed that it expects strong trading momentum in the first two months of financial 2024, with revenue exceeding 30% year-on-year.


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Ford looking to switch-on its plans for small cars
After paring back its stateside lineup to mostly SUVs, crossovers, trucks, and the Mustang, a report by Automobile suggests that Ford may be considering a Focus-based pickup to sell in the U.S.
The report cites unnamed sources at Ford who’ve said that the Blue Oval would consider selling a small, unibody pickup in the States roughly similar to the Ford Courier it sells abroad. The pickup would be built at the automaker’s facility in Cuautitlán, Mexico, facility and replace the Ford Fiesta. The small Courier pickup was built in Brazil until 2013, when it was replaced with the Ford Ranger.
In the United States next year, the Ford Ranger will go on sale after a long break. The Courier has a short history in the U.S., although it lacks the name recognition of the Ford Ranger. The Courier name was once used on a Mazda-based pickup that Ford sold in the U.S. in the late ’70s.
According to the Automobile report, a Focus-based pickup would slot below the new Ranger and give Ford a wide range of pickup sizes to offer to shoppers.
A Ford spokesman didn’t comment on the report.
“While we don’t comment on speculation about future products, we are significantly expanding our North America lineup with all-new vehicles and entering new segments with fresh designs and white space silhouettes that will position us for even more growth,” Ford spokesman Mike Levine said in a statement.


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Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More
The engineers at startup ClusterK know a heck of a lot about an often overlooked part of popular cloud provider Amazon Web Services called Spot Instances, where you can name your price for using slices of servers in the Amazon cloud. ClusterK has figured out a way to run complex applications on these Spot Instances for a tiny fraction of the cost of running it on Amazon’s more popular on-demand instances.
Dmitry Pushkarev, ClusterK’s chief executive, told VentureBeat in an interview that his startup can give companies “90 percent off the Amazon price.”
Which is huge. Companies are already keen on lowering their bills when it comes to running their applications in the public cloud, whether they’re for internal use or external consumption. The cloud price wars, where Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, and other companies are challenging each other, have made this clear, and optimizations with spot instances could be considered a new way to achieve that nirvana.
Companies that have heard about this tool absolutely love it. And yes, investors are funding it.
The startup has now raised $1.2 million from Rally Ventures, Data Collective, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (as in the Mayo Clinic), and several angel investors. (Disclosure: Rally Ventures is one of the investors in VentureBeat as well.)
ClusterK’s system predicts prices for different types of Amazon Spot Instances and then it distributes capacity for computing work in such a way that computations are simultaneously cheap and fault-tolerant.
“So when those [price] spikes do occur, in most cases, they won’t affect our capacity,” Pushkarev said. “We’ll try to rebalance that well ahead of time.”
What’s more, companies don’t need to tinker with their code if they move applications from on-demand instances on Amazon to its Spot Instances, Pushkarev said.
ClusterK’s team members talk with people on the Amazon’s Spot Instances team every day, Pushkarev said. And not only that — he said the people at Amazon love ClusterK. The startup is increasing adoption of Amazon’s Spot Instances.
The question is whether Amazon might end up competing with ClusterK at some point in the future — just as it has come out with products that compete with products from customers like Dropbox and Parse. But Pushkarev doesn’t think that will happen for one to three years, he said. So all is well.
In any case, should other public clouds come out with their own versions of spot instances, ClusterK could well support them. Amazon would be unlikely to do that.
The success caused Pushkarev to wonder what he might be able to do for other types of businesses.
And so in 2013 Pushkarev left Illumina and started ClusterK. Now headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., ClusterK has attracted a handful of customers. Pushkarev pulled up a dashboard showing one customer’s Amazon Spot Instance costs and savings. The savings relative to the costs were impressive. One day earlier this week, the customer saved over $1,000 running Hive queries on its custom Hadoop cluster, Pushkarev said.
“Every day on just a small Hadoop stack, they’re saving over a thousand dollars, which allows them to run more experiments, get results faster and stay ahead of the competition,” he said.
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Welcome to the February 1st Warehouse & Logistics News. The Prime Minister has now announced her vision of Britain’s future relationship with our European and global trade partners, specifically her commitment to “tariff-free and frictionless trade” with the EU and hopes of ambitious free trade agreements elsewhere. The reality remains to be seen but the announcement at least clarifies matters about the Government’s plans for Brexit for warehousing and logistics people here and internationally.
Europe’s fashion businesses are some of the biggest investors in warehousing and logistics, as confirmed by our cover story about SSI Schaefer’s new omni-channel logistics centre for the Stockmann Group, one of Scandinavia’s leading retailers.
Replacing four separate warehouses, the new facility at Tuusula houses some 100,000 different products, or over 1.8 million individual items. Large products, cosmetics and decorative items and hanging textile goods are bundled together in one place covering all distribution channels and the new DC forms the central plank of Stockmann’s omni-channel strategy. The chain’s thirtieth ‘Crazy Days’ five-day discount event in mid October saw 1.4 million items sold in stores and over 1 million shoppers online.
Smoothing such seasonal peaks is driving Stockmann’s commitment to omni-channel, with SSI Schaefer’s WAMAS logistics software handling the stock management and order processing.
Beefing up warehousing and logistics operations to compete successfully in changing markets is an option open to all industry sectors, not just fashion. In our features we look at three key areas, Forklifts, Warehouse Floors and Pallet Networks. Oxford Economics’ latest Forklift Truck Market Outlook shows BITA members’ confidence softening in line with the economy’s predicted slowing, with counterbalance trucks expected to be hardest hit. However James Clark of BITA remains optimistic, talking about “encouraging” current order books and online shopping’s continuing evolution holding up warehouse truck orders.
Maintaining warehouse floors can lower the risk of accidents, improve productivity, reduce damage to trucks and increase driver fatigue and absenteeism. In our Warehouse Floor feature we hear from CoGri Group, who have been busy on behalf of global logistics firm Kuehne & Nagel, EGGER UK, whose load bearing panels have transformed Wyder Timber Systems’ Preston facility, Elan, the UK importers of FactoryCat cleaning equipment, who are looking for more dealers and Beaverswood, who have expanded their floor signals range.
In our Pallet Networks feature, don’t miss our exclusive interview with Hilary Devey CBE, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Pall-Ex Group, celebrating its twentieth anniversary. The Pall-Ex story started when Hilary Devey overheard a haulier saying it took nearly two weeks to deliver a pallet from Cardiff to Carlisle because he had to wait for enough orders to come in to fill the lorry before it set off. Pall-Ex has since grown, first into a UK-based network and then into a market-leading player across multiple European territories, with over 350 members.
Finally, don’t miss the UPN 2017 Sports Planner in the centre pages of this issue. You can also download it on our website www.warehousenews.co.uk. Have a good month.


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It's hardly a revolutionary discovery. But big airlines that prided themselves on their complexity are finally realizing that "keep it simple, stupid" may be a big part of the solution to their woes.
On Tuesday, American Airlines confirmed that it is launching wholesale changes aimed at improving its efficiency (See article ). With the moves, employees and airplanes should be more productive, and costs should come down. Since revenue is unlikely to jump up anytime soon, reducing costs is likely the key to getting back to profitability.
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renamed China (eName.cn) February 14th news, micro-blog today’s circle of friends, in addition to the full screen show of affection outside, the biggest news is that the taxi drops and quick taxi this quarrelsome lovers even in the Valentine’s day in hand. Netizens in two serious thinking after a taxi software to monopolize the market, there is no taxi subsidies, but also can not help but laugh, drops and fast in the end who attack who ask? Small, drops and fast after the merger, the domain name
decide on what path to follow?
fast and drops the "hatred"
was born in 2012 at the same time the taxi drops and quick taxi (xiaojukeji.com) (kuaidadi.com), from the moment of birth is hostile to state rivals, the two companies are always fighting in a taxi software market, in order to market share accounted for from time to time staged all martial arts, busy playing, completely is a "Yu Sheng, He Shengliang drama.
figure: drops fast merge
for example, the last year with vigour and vitality of burn wars, two taxi software is to raise the amount of subsidies, will be secretly competing with openly moved to the surface, but a pinch fight at outrance, burn burned awfully, in just six months, the two companies have burned 2 billion 400 million yuan.
in the burn war died down, the two companies in addition to competing in the original market, will also look to the car uniform field, has launched the "one car" and "car drops" service. A field to sike. In the recent rush envelopes activities, drops and fast is to give users send various preferential red envelopes, constantly infighting.
contractors who want to play two intense outside, has long been secretly "grew up", "work", "now even pull card directly, announced the marriage.
fast and drops the domain name
drops and fast, although the business has been in the contest, but they have to say in fact quite understanding, for example in the domain name, the two companies have agreed not to choose the brand Pinyin domain name, with the taxi drops the official website is the parent company of Quanpin domain name xiaojukeji.com, fast taxi is using the three spell kuaidadi.com.
and they are not to protect the brand Quanpin dididache.com and kuaididache.com. In addition, they were previously launched limousine service, Didi car domain didizhuanche.com and one car yihaozhuanche.com are no protection in the arm, were registered first.
drops and fast marriage will be happy?


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Myanmar’s Amara Communications has launched the brand campaign for its upcoming 4G+ data service, ananda.
Beginning on Feb 7, the ananda logo can be seen on billboards around the city of Yangon, as well as online on www.ananda.com.mm and www.facebook.com/anandalivemore.
Featuring a mobius strip design in three shades of green, the ananda logo portrays an infinity loop reflecting the word ananda, which means infinity in Pali.
As part of the campaign, ananda will open its very first infinity hub at the 2018 Full Moon Party Live in Yangon on Saturday, 10 February at One Entertainment Park.
Visitors to the ananda infinity hub will enjoy immersive music and digital entertainment experiences, and can sign up for exclusive pre-launch updates and offers. ananda is scheduled for commercial service launch during the latter part of the first quarter of 2018.


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As Apple feels the warmth from the coronavirus, AAPL inventory is plunging and it seems like issues would possibly worsen for different tech shares as properly.
A number of firms and shares usually, are nonetheless feeling the unpalatable results of the coronavirus outbreak. Due to a number of restrictions positioned by Chinese language authorities in addition to different governments, these companies are taking a success. The decline inevitably implies that their shares are additionally struggling. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) inventory has felt this decline firsthand and started to lose some weight on Friday amid coronavirus fears.
Apple (AAPL) Inventory Falls
On Friday, at first, AAPL plunged virtually 1%, to commerce at $316. This was a response to Apple contemplating permitting iPhone customers entry to rival apps as default for browser and mail capabilities. AAPL finally closed at $313.05 after dropping 2.26%.
Sadly, AAPL has dropped additional. Present market figures present that the inventory has misplaced greater than 4% in premarket worth and is buying and selling at $299. Though there won’t but be any trigger for alarm, Apple (AAPL) inventory has misplaced virtually 4% within the final 5 days. Market analysts recommend that this won’t be the top of Apple inventory woes, due to the coronavirus.
Final week, Apple stated due to the coronavirus, it should fall wanting its predicted income for the quarter. The corporate stated on the time that manufacturing is “quickly constrained” and even those that have resumed are shifting so much slower. Apple additionally stated most shops have closed and so gross sales are struggling.
Different Tech Inventory May Be part of the Apple (AAPL) Plunge
Apple inventory won’t be the one concern. Fashionable investor Paul Meeks has piled on the dangerous information. In a dialog with CNBC’s Buying and selling Nation, Meeks stated that tech shares might take a severe hit. Firstly, Meeks believes that Apple inventory is overvalued. Secondly, he sees a doable 20% AAPL inventory plunge due to the coronavirus. The investor believes that the tech market ought to be sturdy, if not for the virus.
“There’s some comeuppance due, and sadly I believe the coronavirus is that exogenous variable that may be a catalyst to take a few of these shares down.”
Inventory markets, usually, are additionally shaky. For instance, the Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 1.7% with each the Dow Jones futures and S&P 500 futures shedding 1.3% respectively. The drop can be seen within the worth of crude as that can be shedding some weight. The gainer right here, unsurprisingly, is gold.
Apple Is Loosening Up
Along with permitting iPhone customers some entry to rival apps, Apple can be reportedly contemplating making modifications to its HomePod. Apple’s HomePod wi-fi speaker has trailed behind different related merchandise just like the Google Dwelling or Amazon’s Echo. The HomePod’s worth did nothing to assist because it appeared ridiculous to purchase it at $349, at launch, when the Echo value $99.
Nevertheless, Apple needs to permit third-party music apps some entry. Which means that iPhone customers preferring to subscribe to Spotify, as an alternative of Apple Music, will now have equal entry to the HomePod’s options.
Final yr, Apple’s share of the sensible speaker market was lower than 5%. With a transfer like this, the corporate hopes that customers will now have extra cause to make use of the HomePod and drive up the corporate’s market share.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.


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Panasonic has a smarter vision than most. From IoT to massive public infrastructure projects, it has set the pace when it comes to connected living, renewable energy and next generation neo-lifestyle technologies.
At CES 2017, Panasonic officially announced that it had begun production of high energy, high density lithium-ion batteries at the Tesla Gigafactory, in Nevada. A further deepening of its strategic partnership with Tesla, the new power cells will be used in Tesla’s upcoming Model 3 electric car.
It also used CES to showcase its smart city agenda, providing an update on its CityNow project in Denver, which includes the deployment of Smart LED streetlighting and anti-congestion vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and a strategic alliance with DisneyResorts. Closer to home, Panasonic also showcased a kitchen full of connected appliances, and looked to the future with AI.
Panasonic has taken a lead when it comes to big infrastructure projects, assuming a unique role in the execution of smart living and sustainable technologies.
From the creation of the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town project, and its collaboration with the city of Denver, though to its Future Living Berlin smart home project, the company has taken a leading role in developing big, if disparate, lifestyle solutions.
The Fujisawa SST pilot is essentially a complete town, based close to Tokyo. Eventually it’ll be home to some 3000 people. Located on the site of an old Panasonic factory, it’s due to be completed in 2020. Fujisawa’s renewable energy systems can provide off-grid power for up to three days.
By way of contrast, Future Living Berlin is a residential project, comprising a complex of 69 smart home apartments, built in an interactive community space. Other projects in development include Tsunashima and Lyon France.
So are their any plans to start a similar Smart City/sustainable energy project in the UK? We put the question to UK marketing director David Preece (pictured above).
“Well, we’re in those businesses in Europe, so absolutely. It’s part of the growth strategy for the whole European company,” he told Inside CI. “We’ll be gradually looking to roll those things out.” Such projects take time though, he adds. “Fujisawa SST took around four years, from spade in the ground to first opening ceremony, in Denver they’re already a year in.”
He also points out that each project tends to be unique. “Fujisawa is all about sustainable energy, whereas Denver is about transportation and Berlin is more about smart home technology. Each Smart City project that Panasonic has developed has been quite different.”
The UK would present its own particular challenges, admits Preece.
“We have the same set of problems here, from over congestion to environmental issues. The country is an old platform though. Just consider the age of much of our infrastructure. You can imagine that if Milton Keynes was being built now, that would be a perfect project….”
While Panasonic has had a corporate focus on smart city developments, it’s also been pushing its own low cost smart home product range.
Preece says the consumer is now demanding cross platform interoperability. “There’s a big piece of work to be done.” He says. “Retailers are telling us that they want full integration.
“We need wider compatibility within our own ecosystem, Amazon Alexa, Hive… that is something we’re working on. We realise that we need to. True smart means one user interface. Our smart home business unit is based out of Japan, but there are commercial deals, such as Honeywell, being done in the US. We’ll look to expand compatibility. That’s the next step. I think we’ve done a good job getting that product to market, and explaining the benefits of DECT, such as better security.
“When we first brought that to market, we had an engineering team in the UK testing routers and network infrastructure for three months. We’ve proven that our solutions are easy to use, robust and stable. Consumer feedback has been good.”
Panasonic offered a look at the future of smart tech at CES with a number of R&D projects from its Future Tech Lab.
A prototype desktop robot companion, with an egg-shaped form factor, aims to communicate and offer friendship through artificial intelligence. It is, says Panasonic, both a communications and entertainment device, but also ”a family member, teacher or friend.”
Features include smooth motion and naturalistic communication. It features an integrated video projector, so can present video content. It also employs sophisticated image recognition technology, and voice recognition.
The company also demonstrated a multilingual translation system, for use in public spaces, hotels and the like. Users simply ask a question, perhaps for directions, which is then translated and directions given onscreen.
There were also demonstrations of a smart table, which displays data from connected appliances, a smart glass curtain (in which what appears to be a window can turn into a fully active display), and VR.


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Advertising network Interpublic Group (IPG) has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with Acxiom to acquire its marketing solutions business for $US2.3 billion.
The deal has been approved unanimously by the boards of directors of both companies, and combines IPG’s media, creative, marketing services and analytics capabilities, global scale and consumer insights, with Acxiom Marketing Solutions’ data management expertise.
With the acquisition, the Acxiom brand name will become part of the IPG portfolio, but the transaction does not include Acxiom’s LiveRamp business.
Acxiom Marketing Solutions (AMS) provides data solutions for delivering real-time customer experiences, and includes all of Acxiom’s data and data services.
The company has 2,100 employees including 1,600 data specialists, over 2,000 clients, access to hundreds of marketing databases, recognises 2.2 billion connected consumers, and manages over 20 billion customer records.
How AMS will specifically complement the agency network’s businesses in Australia will be revealed over time, and IPG spokesperson told B&T.
IPG chairman and CEO Michael Roth said: “In a world where everything is becoming data-driven, Acxiom Marketing Solutions offers the deepest set of capabilities for helping companies navigate the complexity of creating personalised brand experiences across every consumer touchpoint.
“Combining AMS with a range of IPG assets will help us shape the future of our industry. Acxiom’s leadership on data ethics is second to none, its business is solid and growing, and it has long played a foundational role in the marketing ecosystem.
“The company also boasts 2,100 associates with data and analytics skills that are at a premium in business today.
“Combined with IPG’s world-class client roster, as well as our talented 50,000-person global workforce across media, advertising and marketing services, and you have an unrivalled offering.
“Over the last year of working closely with AMS to power our AMP data platform, we’ve seen that our cultures are a great fit, and we’ve also seen that the combination creates value for our clients, as it will for our shareholders.”
Acxiom Corporation CEO Scott Howe said: “This transaction is a great outcome for both Acxiom and our Acxiom Marketing Solutions business unit.
“Acxiom Marketing Solutions is a strong business with deep expertise in data-driven marketing, talented associates and a client roster that includes many of the world’s leading companies.
“After careful consideration of a variety of options and potential partners, it became clear that a sale of AMS to IPG, with its scale and breadth of complementary services, represented the best possible path forward for our clients and associates.”
Dennis Self and Rick Erwin will continue to serve as co-presidents of AMS, which will remain a standalone division aligned with IPG Mediabrands, reporting into Arun Kumar, chief data and marketing technology officer at IPG.
In this guest post, Hulsbosch’s creative director Marcel Wijnen, casts his design eye over what truly makes a brand and says it’s all about being true and essential… To do simple – and to be original – is a truly tough task. Not impossible, but not easy. Naturally, we can get lost in ‘striving for simplicity’ […]
Seven Victorian charities are uniting for a month-long virtual fundraising challenge - Power Up 2021 - between 28th February and 28th March. There’s no denying that 2020 affected everyone, but small charities experienced a huge drop in much needed donations and it is hoped the Power Up campaign will bring fundraising back to life.
South Australia’s largest independent supermarket chain, Foodland – with its unforgettable jingle “Foodland, the mighty South Aussies, yeah” – will launch a new campaign on 7th March. The campaign coincides with the chain’s $251m expansion program to open twenty-five new stores, revamp fourty-seven and create 2,500 new jobs over the next five years. Agency KWP! […]
A-listers turned out to Klarna's Sydney party last night. It did move significantly down the alphabet on B&T's arrival.
On Thursday, Quantcast held their Virtual NOVA event, discussing the current state of the advertising industry, the end of third-party cookies, the open internet vs walled gardens, and data privacy and consent. The event coincided with the launch of their new Quantcast Platform. It is an intelligent audience platform powered by the company’s patented AI […]


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Mobile Enterprise: Merchants Must Ramp Up Security in a Mobile World29-Nov-2015
No matter where you look, statistics prove that mobile is here to stay and only continuing to grow. A ComScore study found that 78% of mobile searches for local business information result in a purchase, and the number of mobile transactions is expected to reach up to three quarters of a trillion dollars by 2017. Phone companies are catching on as well –- we’ve seen the release of several mobile wallets this year; Android Pay and Samsung Pay were both launched to compete with Apple Pay, which also expanded into the United Kingdom in 2015. Despite the increasing reliance on and movement toward mobile among industries, merchants are still lagging behind in mobile optimization and security.
A recent study from Kount, The Fraud Practice and CardNotPresent.com, “Mobile Payments & Fraud: 2015 Report,” found that less than 40% (39.7%) of organizations have the ability to detect if a customer is transacting from a mobile device, and only 17% of organizations can determine the type of mobile device. As merchants seek to maximize revenues through mobile channels, they must put the right tools in place to prevent fraud and realize the challenges that come along with mobile commerce. The cost of fraud on mobile is high — $3.34 in hidden costs for every dollar of fraud compared to $2.62 for online fraud. So why aren’t retailers optimizing security for mobile checkout processes?
Due to the increased amount of new payment options (mobile wallets), technologies (EMV), and volume of transactions, many merchants are overwhelmed by the new methods that consumers are using to pay, and perplexed by the best way to combat fraud for each. In fact, according to the above study, managing the complexity of new payment types was the biggest obstacle to mobile adoption this year (20%).
Retailers can combat these challenges by first (and most importantly) being able to identify through which avenue payments are being made. A smart plan of attack is to implement a comprehensive fraud strategy that is customized to your own specific business and uses multiple tactics in real time. These tactics include analytics, scoring, device data, product based rules, behavioral monitoring, and geographic analysis. The best possible system will use this data in both machine-learning and rules-based systems, which gets the most value of the data while giving the merchant complete control.
Once a fraud system is in place, there are several ways for merchants to stay on top of mitigating fraud, which includes being on the lookout for common tactics criminals tend to use. One of these methods is “card testing,” which is when a fraudster runs multiple transactions on one card as they try to validate stolen cards. Another sign that fraudulent transactions may be in progress is if multiple transactions from different cards are coming from one single IP address. Having a fraud strategy in place will help merchants gain access to all of these data points and make it easy to identify and prevent risky transactions.
Mobile adoption, as well as the technologies designed to keep pace with increased mobile use, will continue to evolve, constantly creating new weaknesses on which fraudsters can prey. Along with conducting thorough reviews of your payment and fraud systems regularly, merchants need to make it a priority to have the right tools in place that can detect and predict fraud before it happens, allowing more legitimate transactions to go through, and stopping fraudulent ones in their tracks.
Donald Bush is vice president of marketing for Kount, a provider of fraud detection and sales boosting technology.


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Neue announced as 2nd best Independent Agency of the Year at The One Show
For more than 40 years, The One Show’s Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the most prestigious prizes in the creative industry, “honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity”. We are honoured to be the 2nd best independent agency in Europe and 11th world wide!
The Norwegian Passports wins gold at The One Show
Neue Design Studio is the only Norwegian agency to be awarded in this year’s The One Show, taking the first prize for the design of The Norwegian Landscape – Norway’s newly released official passports. “We could not be more proud of the journey we have had with this project” says Creative Director Lars Håvard Dahlstrøm.


text: Europe's largest fashion online retailer, Zalando, has partnered up with Abercrombie & Fitch. The American company has agreed a deal that will see it provide Abercrombie, Hollister and Abercrombie Kids products wholesale, to be sold in Europe online. Abercrombie & Fitch President, Fran Horowitz, has said that the deal will strengthen all three of its brands in Europe, with Zalando reinforcing the presence it currently has there. Meanwhile, Zalando has said that the deal with Abercrombie & Fitch “brings three iconic brands to our business, thus, adds great value to our assortment offering”, and that it helps make “online shopping more inspiring across Europe”. The American company already has deals with Next and Asos, and a further 117 shops in Europe.


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Microsoft confirmed on Monday that it is currently investigating reports of the Windows Phone 7.5 keyboard disappearing.
A number of users have reported that the Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” keyboard disappears during regular use of the phone. A thread on the XDA-developers forum contains 40 replies of users complaining about the issue. “The keyboard just drops when I’m texting,” notes one poster. “It’s almost as if the screen was registering another touch on the messaging hub making it the keyboard drop. I don’t really know, but it was annoying.”
Microsoft confirmed on Friday that it was aware of the issues via its Windows Phone support team. The software giant also sent a statement to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley on Monday confirming its investigation into the reports. “Customer support is working with the individuals reporting changes to their experience. We are investigating these reports to determine the root cause of any issues users are having,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.
WMPowerUser has also compiled a list of possible Mango bugs, including decreased keyboard accuracy and excessive data use. It’s not clear whether Microsoft is investigating the additional reports. I have experienced the keyboard issue first hand and it happens regularly on the HTC TITAN that I use on a daily basis, a device that ships with Windows Phone 7.5 preinstalled. Anyone else seeing similar issues or problems with battery life?


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[Budget 2022] Central Bank Digital Currency to be issued by RBI in 2022-23, says FM
During her Union Budget 2022 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman revealed the government has proposed to introduce "a digital rupee using blockchain and other technologies issued by The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), starting 2022-23."
The digital rupee will be a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and Sitharaman said it will "give a big boost to the digital economy." Such a digital currency would lead to an efficient and cheap currency management system, she added.
A CBDC is the virtual form of a government’s fiat currency, and is issued and regulated by local authorities. It is run on a digital ledger system, which may or may not be blockchain-based. In India's case, Sitharaman's announcement indicates it will be blockchain-based.
However, the idea of launching a CBDC is not new. For the last few years, the RBI has been toying with the concept and had been looking for a phased implementation for CBDCs this year.
Cryptocurrency, which is also powered by blockchain technology, has long aspired to act as digital currency, but it is increasingly seen as assets for investment or tokens for performing transactions on blockchains.
CBDCs, in contrast, are meant to be used as digital currency. For instance, the digital currency equivalent of INR could theoretically be used as legal tender to make payments, and transactions will be recorded on a digital ledger.
An Indian CBDC could be used for programmable payments between various parties, faster cross-border remittances, retail transactions, and perhaps even offline payments through secure, physical wallets.
Although China has been pioneering CBDC research and India is yet to gain momentum in this space, the local payment infrastructure is robust, highly-developed, and poses a big advantage in India’s future CBDC plans.
The government is also working on a bill that aims to define, compartmentalise, and regulate crypto tokens based on their nature and use cases. However, it is still up for debate how India’s CBDC plans will impact the way it treats and regulates crypto.


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Tourism Industry Seeks Long-Haul Visitors
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau released last year's tourism numbers at its annual meeting today, and they show that business was better than in 2010, but still down due to the recession.
Joe Terzi is president of the Convention and Visitors’ Bureau (CONVIS). He told the gathering at the downtown Marriott Hotel that 31 million visitors came to San Diego in 2011. That was up about one million from the year before.
But business was still down from 2008. One challenge facing San Diego tourism is attracting people from farther away.
“Sixty-three percent of our overnight visitors come from California, Arizona and Nevada: three states,” said Terzi.
CONVIS is trying to expand its customer base by spending $30 million to market San Diego nationwide as a destination. Terzi said the point is not just to increase the number of visitors, but also to increase tourism revenues.
"We own the drive market,” he said. “But the problem is we need to get people to come and stay longer from some of these long-haul markets. Those people spend more money, they stay longer, and they're more lucrative to the destination."
Terzi addressed the CONVIS annual meeting, which is called the "State of the Travel Industry" meeting. He also said San Diego logged 3.8 million hotel room nights in 2011. The visitor industry employed 163,000 San Diegans that year, and brought $17.2 billion to the regional economy.
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As banks and financial institutions try to embrace advancements in financial technology, the digital banking sector has grown exponentially. The pace of digitization of banking systems has been reinforced by the covid-19 pandemic. Out of all bank customer onboarding in 2020, almost 65% of them were done with online methods. Unfortunately, as digital banking services become more meticulous, so do the criminals trying to find a way into banking systems.
In a changing and growing financial sector, firms need to prioritize compliance for their digital banking sectors and they need to make sure that they can detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist funding, and other financial activities. Banks and financial institutions need to continue to deliver regulatory compliance.
Digital Banking AML Regulation
Digital banking service providers are now facing both traditional money laundering risks and other risks that have become possible due to technological advancements in the banking sector. Those risks may be the reason for new methodologies such as phishing scams, malicious software, and virtual currencies to launder money with new digital banking systems. Digital banking services are popular with money launderers because of the anonymity offered by digital banking systems.
Global financing authorities are quickly trying to handle these threats and fill in the gap in regulations, by focusing on improving digital banking services. In the United States, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued a set of rules and guidelines for organizations dealing with virtual currencies. Europe’s 5th Anti-Money Laundering regulations are a set of regulations for digital financial sectors and cryptocurrency service providers. Similarly to that, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has also released its guidance on digital identification and compliance with KYC and AML regulations.
How to Comply with AML Regulation in Digital Banking?
Banks and financial institutions need to make sure that they offer digital services in compliance with AML to reduce the risks of money laundering. Under FATF policies, most financial organizations need to follow a risk-based approach to fight AML. They need to implement an internal compliance program:
- Customer Due Diligence (CDD): Financial institutions need to set up CDD measures to verify the identities of their digital banking customers. Under the risk-based approach, customers that come under a higher risk of money laundering should be verified with proper due diligence measures.
- Monitoring Measures: Banks and Financial institutions will need to set up measures to monitor suspicious customer activities during digital transactions. Suspicious activities can include unusual transactions, transactions over the usual limit, or regular transactions with high-risk countries.
- PEP List Screening: Screening and monitoring potential customers on PEP (politically exposed persons), international sanction lists, and customer involvement in adverse media stories. Any of these can be enough to deem the customer as a potential risk.
Some rules and regulations require financial institutions to get licenses for certain digital services such as cryptocurrency exchange or features like digital wallets. FATF policies also require organizations to train their employees and appoint a compliance officer to go over all the AML programs.
Digital Banking AML Measures
To manage the new money laundering and digital banking risks, banks and financial institutions need to take new approaches to keep up with regulatory compliance. Firms need to change the way they collect and verify customer data. The most effective factors of a digital AML solution include:
- Digital Identification: Digital ID systems include biometric verification such as fingerprints and retinal scans. Combine with fully equipped smartphones, both the customers and banks may use those systems for customer onboarding. Digital identities can support more accurate and efficient CDD during onboarding and throughout the business relationship. Technologies such as DIRO online document verification technology can verify customers online by verifying documents such as bank statements, address proof, and utility bills. DIRO’s document verification tech can verify documents instantly thus improving the overall digital onboarding process.
- Artificial Intelligence: AI technology offers a wide range of opportunities for firms to improve their AML and KYC compliance. AI can help in prioritizing data collection and transaction monitoring. AI-based technologies can also improve the detection of red flags during online transactions and reduce the time and effort banks spend on detecting suspicious activities manually.
- Blockchain: As cryptocurrency is slowly growing, blockchain technology is also becoming more common among banking institutions. Blockchain is a public distributed ledger and blockchain allows firms to record and verify transactions. The technology could be used to store and encrypt customer information as a secure block of information. The use of blockchain technology within AML regulations would help fight the challenges associated with digital banking.
Integrating Technologies for Smoother AML Compliance
Managing customer data and following compliance in the era of digital banking means leaving the traditional AML rules behind. Embracing smart technologies for verification and automation for a better customer experience.
The utilization of DIRO’s document verification technology can offer real-time document verification with 100% of proof of authentication. DIRO’s online document verification technology can verify:
- Bank statements
- Bank account holder information
- Proof of address
- Insurance information
- Utility bills
- Student records & many more.
By employing instant online document verification technology, banks, financial institutions, and FinTechs can improve their digital banking methods.


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Amid the orange martini glasses and $200 ivory cashmere throws, Nordstrom's home department features an unlikely product from an unlikely...
Amid the orange martini glasses and $200 ivory cashmere throws, Nordstrom’s home department features an unlikely product from an unlikely source:
The Westin Hotel’s signature Heavenly Bed.
“Oh ho hooo,” said Michele Jaillett to no one in particular as she approached the display at Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle store. (She had apparently slept at a Westin before.)
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“That’s a bed,” she said.
Hotels — long known for bolting down everything but the towels — have gotten into the business of selling many of the items featured in its rooms.
While guests are accustomed to buying waffle bathrobes from hotel gift shops, they can now purchase dinnerware, art and furniture, too. Already, the nascent hotel retail market has become a $60 million business, according to Hospitality Design magazine.
“I can steal the soap. I can steal the towels,” said Sue Brush, senior vice president of Westin Hotels & Resorts. “But there is a limit here.”
Hotel experts say the burgeoning hotel retail market is driven partly by a revolution in hotel decor. Hotels rooms, once known for cookie-cutter room appointments, have now become objects of design.
Stacy Shoemaker, senior editor of New York-based Hospitality Design magazine, said hotels are hiring big-name designers to create rooms that reflect upscale, modern homes.
Customers have begun asking how to buy items in the rooms, as a result. “They want to remember that feeling,” she said.
Le Parker Meridien New York in December introduced a retail catalog and Web site, www.buyparker.com, where guests can purchase $75 Nambé salt and pepper shakers, and a $2,400 leather classic club chair.
Its slogan: “Take It Home. Don’t Steal It.”
Want to experience the lighting at Hotel Palomar in San Francisco at home? Kimpton Hotels this summer plans to launch an online catalog, www.KimptonStyle.com, where guests can purchase that and other items from its collection of hotel properties.
Joseph Pine, co-author of the book “The Experience Economy: Work is Theater & Every Business a Stage,” said companies increasingly have to find new ways to differentiate themselves.
When goods and services are commodities, the way to beat a competitor is by staging a memorable experience.
“Hotels are in fact leading the way in how they design the hotels and how they interact with guests and how they appoint the rooms,” he said.
While hotel chains have begun launching branded catalogs and online stores, the Heavenly Bed is the first hotel-room product to be sold by a national retailer.
Brush said the retail agreement is an extension of a program that has exceeded its expectations. Westin sold $8.5 million worth of Heavenly Bed products last year with “quite, frankly, not a whole lot of effort.”
Starwood’s former Chairman Barry Sternlicht devised the Heavenly Bed after buying Seattle-based Westin in 1997.
“But no one was complaining” about the beds, Brush said. “No one was unhappy, which is why this whole thing was interesting.”
They brought in 50 different mattresses. Some sat gingerly on the edges. Sternlicht, she said, plopped spread eagle onto one — as if to show the others they didn’t know how to properly test out a bed.
They eventually chose a mattress, pillow top and pillow. They chose a duvet over the fitted comforter. They went — gasp — all white.
Starwood tied up all the manufacturing mills in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to make the beds — a preemptive move to ensure it was the first to offer the beds.
The first week, Westin received inquiries from 32 customers about how to purchase the bed. The first year, it set up orders by phone. The second year, it added a catalog. The third year, it pitched up a Web site.
Westin to date has sold more than 6,000 beds and 30,000 pillows.
The Heavenly Bed At Home collection, which debuted in Nordstrom home departments last week, isn’t cheap. The linens are priced from $35 to $300. The whole, 10-layer shebang goes for between $3,115 and $3,615.
Macy’s offers a collection of bedroom and bathroom accessories under the private label “Hotel Collection” brand. None of it comes from a specific hotel, a Macy’s spokesman said.
Jaillett, who stopped by the downtown Seattle Nordstrom display recently, said she would consider buying a Heavenly Bed in the future — perhaps when she gets married and combines furniture with her husband.
“The bed’s good,” she said. “But it’s all about the sheets for me.”
Monica Soto Ouchi: 206-515-5632